Key takeaways
- The human element is the most important dimension of change.
- The assessment is recommended in Phase A and run with HR, business lines, and IT planners.
- Five activities: factors, maturity models, rating, risks and actions, integration into the plan.
- The actions join the Implementation and Migration Plan of Phases E and F.
- Risks identified in Phase A are monitored in Phase G.
Why and when
Enterprise Architecture often brings significant change. Among its many dimensions, the human element is by far the most decisive. Understanding early whether the organization is ready to accept change, identifying obstacles, and handling them in the Implementation and Migration Plan determines the success of the transformation in Phases E and F.
TOGAF therefore recommends running the assessment in Phase A. It jointly involves corporate functions, especially human resources, lines of business, and IT planners: it is not an exercise left to the architecture team alone.
Five activities in order
The sequence below connects readiness assessment to migration decisions. It starts from the factors, goes through their evaluation, and ends in the migration plan.
- 1. Determine the readiness factors that will affect the organization
- 2. Present these factors using maturity models
- 3. Assess the factors and give each a rating
- 4. Assess the risk of each factor and define improvement actions to reduce it
- 5. Build these actions into the Phase E and F Implementation and Migration Plan
Factors and rating (ADM Techniques)
FURTHER STUDY · APPLICATION DETAILS
The ADM Techniques propose an example list of factors, to adapt to the context. Each factor is then rated from three angles: its urgency, its current readiness status, and how hard it is to fix. These details go beyond the Foundation syllabus but make the technique concrete.
- Shared vision, desire and willingness to change, real need
- Business case, funding, sponsorship and leadership
- Governance, accountability, a workable approach and execution model
- IT and departmental capacity to execute, then to implement and operate
Link with risk management
Architecture risks are first identified in Phase A, as part of this initial assessment. The risk identification and mitigation worksheets then become governance artifacts, kept up to date and monitored in Phase G. A readiness weakness spotted at the start, such as hesitant sponsorship, thus becomes a planned action and then a monitored risk during implementation.
TERMS TO KNOW
The terms, in context.
- Business Transformation Readiness Assessment
- A technique that evaluates and quantifies an organization’s ability to carry out a transformation.
- Readiness factor
- An element that enables or hinders change, such as sponsorship or funding.
- Maturity model
- A scale used to present the current and desired state of each readiness factor.
- Implementation and Migration Plan
- The Phase E and F plan into which the assessment’s improvement actions are built.